Immunotherapies for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a rapidly progressing cancer in which the stem cells within the bone marrow differentiate into immature lymphocytes and proliferate from there. More specifically, there is an overproduction of immature lymphocytes that in turn causes a deficiency in the other blood cell types leading patients to become immunocompromised, anemic, or thrombocytopenic. Traditionally, this type of cancer has been treated with chemotherapy or radiation. Although these traditional methods may be successful most of the time, they can also come with harmful side effects, but new advanced treatments have been developed in the form of immunotherapies. Some of these latest immunotherapies include CAR-T therapy, monoclonal antibodies, allogeneic transplantation, and checkpoint inhibitor drugs which are an improvement from previous methods because they target specific regions of the body and utilize the body's immune system. Through this project, I aimed to provide insights into how these immunotherapies function and why they are useful for treating ALL.